What's Mine and Yours

“What’s Mine Is Yours” tells the story of two families from the town of Piedmont in North Carolina. In 2002, the county decided to transfer students from the predominantly Black east side of the town to a school on the white west side. This event links the families of the main characters in the most unexpected way. The mothers, similar in their drive to provide for their children, take opposite sides: one sees integration as a chance for her son, the other sees it as a threat to her daughters. They don’t know that long before these events, the fathers of their families were friends and shared plans for life—plans that never came true. The mothers also don’t suspect that the shared future of their children has already been determined for many years ahead. The novel spans roughly thirty years; the years shift one after another as the author reconstructs the fates of the two families—parents, children, and their relationships—piece by piece for the reader.